APHIS-DESTROYERS. 181 



meal, not "toujours perdrix*' but "toujours puceron" 

 Amongst this devouring crew is the beautiful gold-eyed, lace- 

 winged Fly, which, while yet in its crawling minority, roams 

 through its appropriated leafy fold, making tremendous use of 

 its crooked and perforated tusks, first to slaughter, then to suck 

 in the sweet juices of its victims at the rate of two a minute. 

 Of less ferocious aspect, but not a whit less insatiate than the 

 above, is the green or parti-coloured Grub of a Bee-like Ely, 

 called a Syrphus, of which many varieties are common in 

 gardens, darting from flower to flower, or hovering hawk-like 

 over them. Applied closely to a leaf or stalk by their 

 hinder extremities, which are broad and flattish, the Grubs of 

 these Syrphi may, in June, be noticed by dozens, on the 

 stretch for the Aphis prey by which they are usually sur- 

 rounded. In this attitude they much resemble Leeches, and 

 like leeches are in greedy search of blood, the honied blood 

 of their victims. 



The above are the most rapacious of those comparatively 

 bulky devourers, that (to the extensive benefit of vegetation 

 and of man) appropriate Aphis flocks by wholesale ; but the 

 Aphis individual (atom as he is) is by no means so insignifi- 

 cant as to escape individual attack. Even the Aphis is great 

 enough to have a parasite. One, a small black Ichneumon Fly, 

 pierces the little green body of the unconscious Sap-sucker, and 

 deposits therein a tiny egg, from which springs a tiny worm, 

 that feasts and grows to maturity within its living receptacle. 



